Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first novel in the Harry Potter series, hit bookshelves in the UK on this day in 1997 after being rejected by twelve publishers. I reference this despite the fact that I have never read one of the novels or seen one of the movies made from them. I am focusing instead on their author, JK Rowling, who has been in the news in recent years for defending her belief that sex is determined by biology. As a result, she has been vociferously castigated as anti-trans and her work has been “cancelled” by many.

Add Pedro Pascal to the list. One of the most popular actors working today, his profile in the latest Vanity Fair is compelling. Pascal was nine months old when his parents fled Chile as political refugees. He struggled financially as a young actor and was twenty-four when his mother died by suicide. The article lauds his “emotional depth onscreen and exuberance everywhere else” and calls him “a star unlike any other.”

But here’s the part that is making headlines: In support of his transgender sibling, Pascal said of Rowling in the interview, “Bullies make me [expletive deleted] sick.” He has also called her a “heinous loser.”

It’s been said that “a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” However, as the pastor and author Nate Pickowicz noted, “John the Baptist lost his head for having a biblical view of marriage.”

Our founding “moral principles” may surprise you

Clemson political science professor C. Bradley Thompson has been a visiting scholar at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of London. In a recent blog, he writes, “The United States of America is the first nation in history to be founded explicitly on moral principles.”

However, he shows that these are not the moral principles you and I might assume them to be.

As his extensive research and writing in the area demonstrates, many of America’s founders were deeply influenced by the European Enlightenment and its emphasis on the natural rights of individuals. Accordingly, their Declaration of Independence embraced the equality of all people and our unalienable Rights to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

According to Thompson, the founders sought “a new kind of society that affirmed the individual’s right to pursue a flourishing life.” This was because they believed that pursuing rational self-interest “was moral and produced a virtuous and civil society.”

To be sure, they emphasized the role of religion in helping people be virtuous. John Adams was adamant that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people” and “is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” George Washington similarly attested, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

But as Thompson shows, many found “religion and morality” to be a means of producing people whose self-interest and self-reliance could then flourish in the new nation founded to provide such freedom.

Now that our post-Christian, “post-truth” culture has largely abandoned both Christian religion and objective morality, all we have left are self-interest and self-reliance. And those who stand for “religion and morality” can expect to be labeled intolerant, bigoted, and worse.

When “neutrality is movement”

Truthless “spirituality” that capitulates to the culture is one way to respond. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, saw this day coming: “I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

Our secularized society subtly but incessantly insists that we join them in separating faith from life. Joel Berry is right: “We’re all in a culture in a leftward-flowing river. Neutrality is movement.”

The good news is that the gospel has thrived most fully across Christian history when the culture has been most antagonistic to its truth. For example, even though the religious authorities rejected Jesus’ resurrection and viewed Christianity as heresy (Acts 5:27–28), the apostles chose to “obey God rather than men” (v. 29) and “a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).

The fastest growing church in the world is in Iran. Christianity is growing exponentially in the Muslim world. Over my many trips to Cuba, I have witnessed personally the joyful courage God gives his faithful people when they face persecution.

“This willing conversion of ink back to blood”

Now it’s our turn.

Barbara Brown Taylor said, “The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God’s sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith.”

What God did at Pentecost in enabling early Christians to speak languages they did not know, he can do today by enabling us to live with miraculous joy and courageous faith. St. Antony of Padua (1195–1231) observed:

The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks different languages. These different languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty, patience, and obedience; we speak in those languages when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others. Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak.

As a result, “Our humble and sincere request to the Spirit for ourselves should be that we may bring the day of Pentecost to fulfillment, insofar as he infuses us with his grace, by using our bodily senses in a perfect manner and by keeping the commandments.”

Charles Spurgeon testified:

“We shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God’s grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible.”

Do you agree?

Quote for the day:

“Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” —St. Augustine

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Denison Forum

Let’s take a break from conflict in the Middle East to have a conversation about events closer to home. Andrew Cuomo conceded in yesterday’s New York City mayoral Democratic primary to Muslim socialist Zohran Mamdani. A Democratic strategist called the former governor’s loss the “biggest upset in modern New York City history.” Mamdani made headlines with his strong support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel.

With five likely candidates, including incumbent mayor Eric Adams running as an independent, the general election in November could be “the strangest local election in at least half a century.”

An election with thirty-nine parties

In America, anyone meeting legal qualifications can run for political office. The same is true in Israel, where any Israeli citizen over the age of twenty-one (with a few exceptions) can form a political party and run for the Knesset, their parliament. In their latest elections, thirty-nine parties participated and fifteen won enough votes for their candidate to be seated.

Contrast these open elections with politics in Iran. Their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently named three senior clerics as candidates to replace him if he were to die in the conflict with Israel. In that event, he instructed his nation’s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body responsible for appointing the supreme leader, to choose his successor from these names.

The country regularly holds elections for president and other offices, but they have far less power than the Supreme Leader, who rules essentially as an autocratic dictator. In addition, their elections are especially influenced by the Guardian Council, an unelected body that disqualifies any candidate it deems insufficiently loyal to the clerical establishment.

The Assembly of Experts empowered to appoint the Supreme Leader is chosen through elections, but its candidates must also be approved by the Guardian Council. And the Guardian Council’s members are appointed directly or indirectly by the Supreme Leader.

“Iran is not important. Islam is important.”

Iran’s theocracy is built on the belief that the nation should be governed by Sharia law. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, postulated that as the clergy have the greatest understanding of Islamic law, they should be the guardians of state power until the return of the Mahdi, their messiah.

Accordingly, the Supreme Leader holds final religious and political authority over all affairs of the state, ruling essentially by divine right. He can oppress his own people and lie to the world about his intentions in the service of advancing Islam as he understands it, or so he thinks. In Khamenei’s view, “Iran is not important. Islam is important.”

This concept is not new.

The Divine Right of Kings doctrine states that a monarch’s authority is derived from God rather than the people or their elected representatives. It developed during the Middle Ages but accelerated when, as a result of the Protestant Reformation, many religious reformers rejected the authority of the Pope and the Catholic church.

For example, England’s King James I (ruled 1603–25), the monarch to whom the King James Version was dedicated, asserted that “the State of MONARCHIE is the supremest thing upon earth” and stated that kings are “GOD’S Lieutenants upon earth.”

The American Declaration of Independence was therefore revolutionary in claiming that “all men are created equal” with “certain unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Its words catalyzed the American Revolution to institute a government “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Why do you believe in democracy?

Perhaps you believe people are innately good and capable of solving our greatest problems. As President Clinton asserted in his first inaugural address, “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”

In this view, democracy is the best form of governance since, in contrast to the “divine right of kings” or Iran’s theocracy, we deserve the right to govern ourselves.

Or perhaps you believe that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We sin by commission and by omission: “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). To deny our sinfulness is itself a sin: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

In this view, we are not good people who sometimes do bad things but fallen people who sometimes do good things. Accordingly, democracy is valuable because none of us can be trusted with autonomous power over others. We cannot discern the mind and will of God so perfectly that we should be empowered to enforce our theocratic beliefs on others. And we cannot rule so justly that we should not be accountable to the voters who elect us and the laws and jurisprudence of the nation we serve.

But maybe not today

Let’s close by making our conversation confessional.

You will not be surprised to learn that I agree with the Bible and therefore see the value of democracy in holding sinful leaders accountable to the people they are intended to serve. I don’t want theocrats or kings to rule over me, since I know them to be as fallen as I am.

Now comes the confession: I do, however, believe all too often that I am capable of governing myself. I want to live in my own personal democracy where I get to vote for what I want and then empower myself to do it. I don’t want others to rule my life because I want to rule it myself.

I know that such self-enthronement is just as foolish as enthroning kings and theocrats—if all other humans are too sinful to rule me, as a human I am too sinful to rule myself.

But maybe not today, I tell myself. Maybe I can handle this temptation, overcome this obstacle, seize this moment, be my own god just this once. And today becomes tomorrow, and how I spend my days is how I spend my life, as Annie Dillard noticed.

So, today is a good day for a dethronement. A. W. Tozer was right:

In every Christian’s heart there is a cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross, he remains on the throne. Perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among gospel believers today. We want to be saved, but we insist that Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the little kingdom of [ourselves] and wear our tinsel crown with all the pride of a Caesar; but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility.

Now we can see why Jesus declared,

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Will you “come after” Jesus today?

Quote for the day:

“Jesus is not our life coach—he is our Lord.” —Michael Koulianos

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Four reasons to trust Jesus at all costs

A man clad in a tactical vest and carrying an AR-15-style rifle and a semiautomatic handgun opened fire on a Michigan church last Sunday. CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne, Michigan, about twenty-five miles west of Detroit, was filled with children attending Vacation Bible School at the time.

The gunman exited his vehicle, began shouting, and started firing at the church building. A parishioner then struck him with a pickup truck as the gunman fired repeatedly at it. Two church employees then opened fire on the man, killing him.

The chief of police said, “We are grateful for the heroic actions of the church’s staff members, who undoubtedly saved many lives and prevented a large-scale mass shooting.” According to police, the shooter’s mother is a member of the church; he had attended church services two or three times in the last year.

Why our church hired security

For the first fifteen years I served as a pastor, worship centers were thought to be “sanctuaries.” Then came the 1999 shooting at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, when a gunman entered the church during a concert and killed seven people, wounding seven others before committing suicide.

Most of the victims were teenagers. If they had lived, presumably, they would be parents today. As it is, their parents have grieved their loss every day from that day to today.

One result of the shooting for many of us was an immediate pivot to heighten security on our campuses. The church I pastored engaged off-duty police officers to stand at the entrances to our sanctuary and patrol our campus during events. Their presence, while offering a significant measure of comfort and security, also reminded us that no place in this fallen world is truly safe.

The shooting in Wayne brings all of that back for me today. And it causes me to wonder if I sat beside someone in church last Sunday who could endanger us all next Sunday. The question is as relevant to you as it is to me.

The most persecuted religion in the world

On one level, we can understand why church gatherings would be targets for terrorism. A group of people in a building with multiple entrances will obviously be vulnerable.

On another level, however, we might presume that no place should be safer than a church where people gather to worship and serve the living Lord of the universe. We are clearly in his will in doing so (cf. Hebrews 10:25). And, as pastors often say, “The safest place in all the world to be is the will of God.”

But the Bible nowhere makes this promise, at least in the way it is often understood.

Of Jesus’ twelve apostles, only John avoided martyrdom, and he was exiled on the prison island of Patmos. Christianity remains the most persecuted religion in the world.

This makes tragic but logical sense: if our enemy is a “murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), why would we not expect him to attack those who follow our Lord most closely? The deeper our commitment to Christ, the more of a threat to Satan we become.

This is why Jesus told us, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). The reason is simple: “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).

Four reasons to trust Jesus at all costs

Why, then, should we trust Jesus with our lives and our future, especially knowing that such faith could come at such a cost?

One: Faith in Christ positions us to experience his best for us. Jesus promised, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11). Our faith does not earn God’s blessing—it enables us to receive his grace.

Two: When people misuse their freedom by attacking us, our Lord sometimes intervenes to protect us (cf. Acts 12:6-11; Isaiah 54:17). The more we rely on him, the more we enable his Spirit to act in our lives (cf. Ephesians 5:18).

Three: When God does not intervene, he redeems our suffering and even our death for his glory and our ultimate good (cf. Romans 8:18). Paul testified, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8).

Four: When we place our lives in God’s hands, our circumstances cannot steal his peace. The prophet testified, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3). He therefore encouraged us, “Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock” (v. 4).

An electric chair atop a steeple

We can choose not to follow Jesus out of fear of opposition and persecution, or we can choose to follow our Savior and trust the consequences to him. What we cannot choose is a world without suffering and eventual death. That option is not available to us.

As St. Augustine noted, “God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.”

It is worth noting that while other religions are represented by symbols such as a star, a crescent, and a wheel, ours is represented by an actual instrument used to execute its victims. Imagine erecting an electric chair atop a steeple or wearing as jewelry a needle used for lethal injections.

But I would rather suffer for an eternal purpose than serve a transitory purpose without suffering.

Wouldn’t you?

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